2021-07-06 Jean Cariaga
Mr Mayor, City Council Members, My name is Jean Cariaga. I am
the owner of Development Services Inc., an HOA management
company.
9601 W State Street Suite 203, Boise, ID 83714
I have been in business over 20 years and my company currently
manages over 100 associations many with acres of common area.
I am not sure about all the differences between qualified vs quality,
but what I do know is that the HOA has to pay for ALL of it to be
maintained regardless of what you might call the landscaped
areas. It still needs to be mowed, trimmed, weeded, fertilized and
watered.
The largest expense for an HOA is the landscape and irrigation
maintenance. It’s usually one of the first items in a budget that is
cut back when trying to balance a budget and keeping HOA dues
reasonable for the owners.
With homeowners property taxes going up, we are starting to see
people get behind on HOA dues. Once people quit paying HOA
dues (because that is typically the last thing they pay) there is not
enough money to maintain the common areas along with other
expenses. Then we have owners complaining that the common
areas are not being maintained due to lack of money needed to
maintain those areas. I find that when landscaping and irrigation
struggles to be maintained that it becomes a no win situation for us
as a management company. We typically then don’t want to
manage the association and sometimes it’s hard for a new
professional management company to take it on since it becomes
a real struggle to fix.
The open space/common area maintenance is an ongoing
permanent cost to the HOA, and it is only getting more expensive
to hire qualified lawn maintenance people. The average bids have
gone up about 20% over the last two years and we are being told
expect more this next year. They are having a hard time finding
laborers, having to pay more and as we all know, the cost of
everything is on the rise. One of my subdivisions has about 3 acres
of open space and the cost went up last year and we had to raise
the HOA dues to cover that, along with all the other costs going up.
Thank you for listening as I just wanted you to understand the long-
term effects of more grass and landscaping and the hardship it puts
on all homeowners to maintain it through their HOA dues.